


Mechanics

by YukiRiikus_Reading_Room



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Feelings, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Love, M/M, Mechanic(s), Soldiers, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YukiRiikus_Reading_Room/pseuds/YukiRiikus_Reading_Room
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's always understood machines.  He takes solace in what he knows - but the mechanics of his and Steve's "relationship" isn't something he understands how to fix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mechanics

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short mini-fic I wrote centered around Bucky. It cycles (time-line wise) through him and Steve pre-serum, to during the war, to after when he's become the Winter Soldier and has his mechanical arm.

Bucky had always been one for mechanics. 

As a teenager, he’d worked at a garage to put food on the table.  Of all the odd jobs he’d done over the years this was the one he loved the most - not for the pay, which was rather crappy, but because it meant he got to tinker with engines and machines.  Steve was always trying to convince him to do it full time, but he knew he couldn’t do that.  Starting out, he wouldn’t make very much, and he was always on the look out for a better opportunity. 

And then came the war.

It had been a no-brainer to join the army.  Bucky was strong, brave, and a bit foolhardy.  He thought he was indestructible, so he was - at that age, nothing could have convinced him otherwise.  He would make a good soldier, everyone could see that.

Leaving Steve behind had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

When he was kidnapped by Red Skull’s men, knowing that no one was coming for him, he’d tinkered with spare bits of metal and wires he could grab through the bars of his cell.  Whatever he could find or the other prisoners could scavenge for him, he used.  Once, he managed to jimmy the cell door open.  He’d helped a few men escape before being caught again waiting for one of the slower ones.

That’s how he’d ended up on the crazy doctor’s table when Captain America showed up to rescue him.

After he was on his feet again, he’d sometimes head down to see Howard Stark and help build new weapons - no matter how big of an ass he thought Howard was, he wanted the United States to win the war, and he knew his insights with weapons could be useful.  Besides, he felt calm with his hands taking apart and reassembling a gun, knowing it was a little better than it had been before he got to it. 

Bucky wished everything was as easy to understand, to fix. 

There were things he and Steve never talked about, even though they’d been friends for years.  They didn’t talk about the few times Bucky had been too drunk or exuberant and left Steve behind to pursue a dame, or how many times Bucky had saved his ass from getting beaten into the pavement by guys three times his size.  The times Bucky has slipped money into Steve’s pockets to pay for groceries or medicine were also off limits, as was the night Steve had sat up when Bucky had pneumonia to make sure he would be there if Bucky woke up and needed anything.

They never talked about the long pauses where all they did was stare at each other, or the times they woke up in their sleeping bags on missions holding hands or pressed together for warmth and maybe something else.  They never talked about the one time Steve had gotten drunk before Bucky went off to war, kissed him, and cried before running home - or how he’d locked the door and refused to let Bucky in because he was embarrassed.  They didn’t talk about the comfort they felt with each other, or how anyone else they tried to be with felt like a replacement that didn’t fit them correctly.  More than anything, they didn’t talk about love, or what a relationship like theirs might mean.

And even though it scared the shit out of him, Bucky knew the time to talk about everything between them would have to happen. 

It was Steve who brought it one day, right before a mission.  They were waiting with the Howling Commandos to board a train carrying one of Red Skull’s scientists when he pulled Bucky aside where the rest of the men wouldn’t hear and said they needed to talk.  Bucky could hear that tone in his voice knew exactly what it was he meant.  Before he could say anything, could get his brain to function, Steve smiled reassuringly and said it could wait till after the mission, that they had plenty of time to figure things out.

If only he’d known then that it was the last time he’d see Steve for over seventy years.

After the Red Room, whenever he tinkered with his mechanical arm, he felt a weird sense that something was missing inside him.  When his fingers touched the smooth metal, he felt chill rushing wind on his face, heard a quiet voice he could almost remember yelling something that he knew should have been familiar.  He worked on his arm every chance he got, hoping that one day he might remember who it was that stood at the edge of what he remembered and the shadowy unknown he felt taking up residence in the back of his brain, untapped.

After all, he’d also found the truth in mechanics.  Now was no exception.


End file.
